Darkness on the Edge of Town: The Woman in Black, reviewed.

Matthew Keenan & Robert Leembruggen in The Woman in Black. (Cameron Whitman)

Matthew Keenan gets scared. (Cameron Whitman)

Robert Leembruggen (Cameron Whitman)

I quite liked Keegan Theatre's production of Susan Hill and Stephen Mallatratt's ghost story The Woman in Black. No arts section in this week's City Paper, so my review is web-only.

Kinky Reboots: Mies Julie and Bondage, reviewed.

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Hilda Cronje and Bongile Mantsai in Mies Julie. (Rodger Bosch)

My reviews of Mies Julie, a South African August Strindberg update, and Bondage, a 1992 David Henry Hwang play from locals Pinky Swear Productions, are in today's Washington City Paper.

While their origins and scale differ, it's useful to compare the productions to one another. Both plays use the sexual negotiations of an interracial couple as means of discussing the troubled racial histories of their native lands.

Bondage reminded me of David Ives' Venus in Fur, while Mies Julie recalled uncomfortably a slavery-era exploitation flick from 1975 called Mandingo that's come up lately in discussions of Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave. I don't imagine that's what adapter-director Yael Farber was going for, but nothing exists in a vacuum.  Anyway, read.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Appropriates His Past

 (Darrow Montgomery/WCP)

My profile of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, whose play Appropriate opens at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company tomorrow night, is in today's Washington City Paper. He says he's rewritten it since I saw its premiere at the Humana Festival of New American Plays last April, so I'm curious to see what's changed.  

Read all about it.

The Scarlet A(s): Inventing Van Gogh and The Argument, reviewed.

Lawrence Remond & Ryan Tumulty in Inventing Van Gogh. (C. Stanley Photography)

In today's Washington City Paper, I review two shows I mostly liked: Washington Stage Guild's Inventing Van Gogh and Theater J's The Argument.

You are alerted.

Mentor of Attention: The Night Watcher, reviewed.

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Won't someone PLEASE think of the children? Charlayne Woodard. (Igor Dmitry/Studio Theatre)

Charlayne Woodard is an actress and storyteller of no mean talent. I did not care for her solo show The Night Watcher.

Reviewed in today's Washington City Paper. 

Youth Aches: In the Forest, She Grew Fangs and Romeo & Juliet, reviewed.

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Megan Graves and Jenny Donovan bare their Fangs. (Chris Maddaloni/The Washington Rogues)

I review Stephen Spotswood's new play In the Forest, She Grew Fangs, as well as Aaron Posner's oddly inert new Romeo & Juliet for the Folger Theater, in this week's Washington City Paper. Available wherever finer alt-weeklies are given away gratis. 

Oh, and the costume and props designer for And In the Forest is Jesse Shipley, not Jenny. My mistake.

Crone Warfare: Round House's The Beauty Queen of Leenane, reviewed

Sarah Marshall and Kimberly Gilbert do battle.

My review of Round House Theatre's new production of Martin McDonagh's first play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, is in today's Washington City Paper.  

Shock and Law: Keegan Theatre's A Few Good Men, reviewed

Ubiquitous director Jeremy Skidmore's tenacious production of A Few Good Men, the play that gave us Aaaron Sorkin, cuts a dashing figure in its dress whites. Reviewed in this week's Washington City Paper, available wherever finer alt-weeklies are given away for free.